











OF 





BISHOP J. M. THOBURN. 








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TRUE EH EORY 


MissioNARY WORK 


BY 


We PeWARRKEN, D:D: 


——_————> ¢ —m _» 


NEW YORK 
PRINTED BY HUNT & EATON 
15so FirrH AVENUE 





INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 





AursoucH our Missionary Society was celebrating 
its fiftieth anniversary when Dr. Warren delivered his 
remarkable address on the True Missionary Theory, it 
was still the day of small things among us so far as 
our missionary work was concerned. The Methodist 
Episcopal Church has made immense strides since 
that day, and hence many of the defects in missionary 
policy which were faithfully pointed out in the ad- 
dress have ceased to exist. This, however, does not 
lessen, but, on the other hand, increases, the value of 
the address to the reader of the present day. It 
marks the progress which has been made, and inspires 
confidence in those parts of the address which have 
not yet been translated into accomplished facts. The 
plea for “living links,” that is, for living men and 
women linking the several churches in America to 
special fields in foreign lands, attracted attention, but 
did not meet with much favor, twenty-five years ago. 
The time was not then fully ripe for so bold a move, 
but it is otherwise now. The policy has been initiated 
among several leading denominations, and last year a 
beginning was made among the Methodists. The 
policy had been tested, to some extent, it is true, so 
far as the support of native helpers in foreign lands 
was concerned, but this had not been done by our 
churches “as such.” The adoption of this policy by 
even two or three hundred of our leading churches 
would at a stroke put our missionary finances on a 
solid footing, and give us a happy deliverance from 


our present financial stringency. 
J. M. Tuosurn. 
June 1, 1894, 





TRUE TaeorY oF Missionary Work. 





Mr. CuarRMAN AND CuHRrIsTIAN FRIENDS: 


I propose, with your kind indulgence, to devote the 
few moments allotted me to a rapid discussion of the 
TRUE THEORY OF MISSIONARY WORK. Obvious and 
fundamental as the theme may seem, I cannot learn 
that it has ever been handled upon this anniversary 
platform. During all these fifty years our eloquent 
anniversary orators have been discussing the different 
aspects of the great cause, and yet, so far as I have 
been able to carry my investigations, not one of them 
has undertaken to tell us what God’s plan for the con- 
version of the world is, or how far we are working in 
conformity with that plan. Indeed, I cannot find 
that this primary question of all has ever been for- 
mally proposed and answered by any of our Metho- 
dist speakers or writers either in lecture, dissertation, 
or extended treatise. Before this audience, therefore, 
the theme has at least the recommendation of novelty. 

Of its importance I surely need not speak. A 
knowledge of the true theory of missionary work is 
as essential to missionary snecess as an acquaintance 
with the true principles of military science is to sue- 





* Address by W. F. Warren, D.D., of the Boston Theological Seminary, deliv- 
ered at the Missionary Anniversary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, held in 
Cooper Institute, New York, November 15, 1869—Fiftieth Anniversary of the 
Missionary Society. 


6 True Theory of Missionary Work. - 


cess in the art of war. We can never expect to con- 
quer the world if we ignore or reject the plans of the 
campaign laid down by the Great Captain. Hours 
would be required were we to attempt a full unfold- 
ment and vindication of the whole divine theory, fea- 
ture by feature; but even a rapid outline statement. 
of it cannot fail to be profitable. We stand to-night 
on the threshold of a new half century of missionary 
labor. If our theory of the work is correct, it will 
heighten our inspiration to know it; if, on the other 
hand, it is defective, now is the time to readjust our 
methods and take a fresh start. 

What, then, is the true theory of missionary work ? 

Everybody understands that the great end contem- 
plated by “the missionary enterprise” is the diffusion 
of the blessings of Christianity throughout the world. 
Every Christian believes that in one way or another 
this glorious consummation is one day to be reached. 
The moment, however, we come to inquire by what 
agents and methods it is to come about, great confu- 
sion is found to exist even in the minds of many 
otherwise intelligent friends of the cause. In fact, there 
are no less than five distinct theories of the propaga- 
tion of Christianity, each of which has had, and to some 
extent still has, its earnest supporters. According to 
the first, the great work is to be accomplished by in- 
dividual propagandists, each acting on his own 
responsibility ; according to the second by the Chris- 
tian State acting through its military or civil service ; 
according to the third, by the entire Christian com- 
munity or stock, in virtue of its out-populating and 
colonizing power; according to the fourth, by volun- 
tary associations of Christian philanthropists, acting 


True Theory of Missionary Work. (i 


through agents employed for the purpose; while, 
according to the fifth, it is properly and normally the 
work of the Church as such, acting through her 
divinely-instituted ministry. 

This great diversity of theory arises, I think, from the 
fact that in the progress of the Church’s history God has 
availed himself of all these methods of enlarging his 
kingdom. For several centuries after the close of the 
Apostolic Age, the chief territorial extensions of the 
Church came about in the first of these modes, that is, 
through individual propagandists acting primarily 

‘upon their own responsibility. Often through the 

agency of an individual Christian captive, or converted 
slave, or Christian princess espoused to a heathen 
chieftain, the Gospel found entrance into large king- 
doms. After that for several centuries, especially 
during tle long alliance between the Western Church 
and the Roman Empire, her chief territorial acquisi- 
tions were through the military and civil power of the 
Christian State. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and 
eighteenth centuries there was a wonderful diffusion 
of Christianity through the overflow of long pent-up 
Christian populations colonizing the ends of the 
earth. In our nineteenth century the grand agency has 
been the voluntary association, the Missionary Society, 
acting through its selected agents. The earliest of all 
propagations of the Gospel, however, those of the 
Apostolic Age, were effected in none of these just- 
mentioned methods, but by the Church as such, acting 
through her own divinely-instituted ministry. 

And this, sir, I take to be the true legitimate and 
normal plan. The work is too vast for individual re- 
sources, too urgent to be left to individual caprice. I 


8 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


would not overlook or undervalue the truly stupen- 
dous results which God in earlier centuries permitted 
some individual propagandists, operating independ- 
ently, to achieve. On the contrary, I believe that we 
should dwell more upon these results, and let them be 
to us, as they were, doubtless, intended to be to all 
generations, inspiring demonstrations of what God can 
do through individual human agency. Nevertheless, 
the divine commission, “ Go, disciple all nations,” is 
not addressed to sporadic individuals, to here and 
there a Coke, a Carey, or an Eliot, but to the Church 
of Jesus Christ. 

The second method of propagating Christianity, the 
method which relies upon the secular arm, has been, 
and still is, the favorite method of Rome. Noswords 
have ever extended the domains of the Church so 
effectually as papal ones, and in the whole storehouse 
of ecclesiastical literature I know of no more signifi- 
cant and characteristic document than Xavier’s famons 
letter to his king, proposing to make over the entire 
work of Christianizing India to the civil service. But 
not exclusively Romish is this theory of evangeliza- 
tion. It was by Greek Catholic swords that Chris- 
tianity was diffused throughout all Northern Asia. 
Cromwell; in that wonderful project of his for divid- 
ing the world into four grand missionary provinces, 
and appointing a government bureau of missions, con- 
sisting of seven salaried directors and four secretaries, 
with a revenue of fifty thousand a year to be expended 
in evangelizing the world, only planned and projected 
in accordance with the missionary theory of his age. 
Soon after their acquisition of territory in the East 
Indies the Dutch secured, by exercises of civil power, 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 9 


tens of thousands of Protestant converts in those 
countries. Even our forefathers, in the colonial his- 
tory of our country, frequently levied taxes upon the 
citizens at large to support Christian missions among 
the Indians. The temptation to use the secular arm 
in diffusing Christianity in British India, and in some 
other parts of the world, is at the present day very 
great. Nevertheless, all who remember Christ’s 
solemn declaration, that his kingdom is not ‘of this 
world, must ever deprecate all such attempts to make 
converts t) Christ either by the bayonet on the one 
hand, or by civil disabilities on the other. 

With respect to the third theory, I grant the exist- 
ence of the great law, according to which virtuous 
stocks multiply and fill the earth, while depraved and 
vicious ones ultimately sink below the conditions of 
vital replacement and gradually disappear. I remem- 
ber the promise given and fulfilled to Abraham, that 
his seed, as a holy one, should become as the stars of 
heaven and as the sands of the sea. -I remember that 
at tle present hour the Christian nations are the holy 
ones which are spilling over and filling up the un- 
peopled lands on every side. China might appear an 
exception to this remark, but the Chinese emigration 
of the present is due to the removal of long-existing 
barriers rather than to any recent increase in the 
population of “the Middle Kingdom.” I grant that 
God’s great plan of human redemption undoubtedly 
includes the beneficent workings of this divine law; 
but when I remember all this, and grant all this, I 
also remember that the divine commission of the 
Church does not read, “Increase and multiply, and 
fill the earth,” but, “Go preach my Gospel.” 


10 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


And this brings us, sir, to the grand characteristic 
method of our own century—evangelization by means 
of the Missionary Society acting through agents ap- 
pointed for the purpose. I call it the characteristic 
method of the century, for the reason that, on the one 
hand, not one of the great missionary societies of the 
world is yet a hundred years old, while, on the other, 
about all that has been directly done to extend the 
Redeemer’s kingdom during the present century has 
been done through the agency of such societies. 
What now shall we say of the theory of missions out 
of which this institution, unknown to all preceding 
centuries, has grown ? 

In several respects it is a correct theory. It cer- 
tainly was a great improvement upon most of the 
preceding. It improved upon the first by giving to 
the feebleness and desultory action of individuals the 
advantage of numbers, organization, and systematic 
supervision. It surpassed the second by substituting 
for its carnal and secular conception of Christianity a 
spiritual and true one. It improved upon the third 
by suggesting direct for indirect agencies in the 
accomplishment of the great work. 

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in its 
first great institutional embodiments, both in England 
and in this country, this theory was gravely defective. 

In the first place it conceived of the missionary 
function not as a necessary and organic function of 
the Christian Church, but as an extraneous work of 
Christian philanthropy. It undertook to carry out 
the great commission not through the Chureh which 
Christ founded, but through an extra-ecclosiastical and 
irresponsible association, 





True Theory of Missionary Work. 11 


In the second place, and as a necessary consequence, 
it transferred to an irresponsible association, whose 
sole condition of membership was either the payment 
of a little money or an election by a close corpora- 
tion, some of the highest and most sacred prerogatives 
of the Church of Christ. It thus transferred the 
power to employ, supervise, and govern scores and 
hundreds of Christ’s ministers; the power of scttling 
the terms upon which heathen converts can be ad- 
mitted to Church fellowship, to Christian baptism, 
and the Lord’s Supper; the power of determining 
whether and when such converts can be admitted to 
the office of the Christian ministry; the power of 
authorizing the organization of churches; and in 
general the power of ultimately and authoritatively 
deciding the thousand and one practical questions of 
mission administration to which the varying cireum- 
stances of the work are ever giving birth. All these 
essential and inalienable prerogatives of Chirist’s 
Church were usurped by the institutions which this 
new theory of Christian missions created. 

_A third defect necessarily grew out of these, and 
that was a total lack of safeguards for the preservation 
of purity of doctrine and a scriptural administration 
of ecclesiastical discipline. The powers of these self- 
constituted societies were plenary. A simple major- 
ity vote could admit or exclude a sacrament. So far 
as the organic law of the associations was concerned, 
their members, and even highest officers, might be 
Socinians, Universalists, Swedenborgians, or Mormons. 
It was not required that even the committees who 
appointed the missionaries should be composed of 
Christian believers. For aught I can discover, these 


12 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


committees might be composed of men denying the 
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the divinity of 
Christ, the necessity of regeneration, and the certainty 
of a final judgment. For aught I can learn, any per- 
son, whatever his character, or faith, or life, might, at 
the pleasure of the society, be appointed as a mission- 
ary. As to their converts, neither they nor the mis- 
sionaries were regarded as belonging to any branch of 
Christ’s visible Church until such time as the appro- 
priate missionary society should instruct them to come 
together and organize a visible Church of their own, 
with such a covenant of fellowship and form of polity 
as they themselves might elect. Under such a system 
there was nothing to secure the evangelical character 
either of the society itself, or of its employees, or of 
their converts. . 

Again, this theory, in its most consistent and effect- 
ive form, not only repudiates all ecclesiastical super- 
vision over its home societies, its missionaries, and 
converts, it even attempts, so far as it may, to mo- 
nopolize for its irresponsible philanthropic associations 
the entire missionary interest and effort of great 
branches of the Christian Church. To secure this 
end the offices of the society are distributed among 
the different available denominations with a tact which 
would do honor to the smartest concert leaders in the 
nation. For the same purpose the leading men in 
said denominations are honorarily elected life mem- 
bers, directors, and patrons. Formal indorsements 
and commendations are solicited at all stated meetings 
of Church Conventions, Synods, and Conferences. 
Skillful fishermen, in the character of financial agents 
or corresponding secretaries, are sent out to fish a liy- 


True Theory of. Missionary Work. 13 


ing, and something over, from these different denomi- 
national ponds. Nothing is left undone which prom- 
ises to divert the missionary offerings and interest of 
the Churches from the exercise of their own appro- 
priate function to the support of these officious organi- 
zations. And all this is palmed off upon the Chris- 
tian public as a masterpiece of Christian catholicity, 
an earnest of that ultimate unity of the Church for 
which Christ prayed ! 

The last stricture which I propose to make upon 
the theory of missions now under discussion is, that 
its natural tendency is to produce an impvession that 
contributions to the support of Christian missions are 
of the nature of charitzes. The work to be supported 
is not a work of the Church. The agent who pleads 
for it in the local churches and congregations can only 
recommend its claims to their Christian impulses. It 
is not their work, any more than a thousand others. 
Christ has never commanded them to support this, or 
that, or any such extra-ecclesiastical organization. 
From the very nature of the case, therefore, the soci- 
ety comes before our congregations as a beggar—a 
very worthy beggar it may be——a beggar deserving 
great sympathy and aid; a beggar who will make 
good use of all we can give him, but, after all, a beg- 
gar. He has no rightful and legal claim upon us, 
nothing but that moral claim which a charitable work 
must ever have upon all right-minded men and 
women. The natural and inevitable result is, that the 
agoregate missionary offerings of the Christian 
Chureh of to-day, when compared with what they 
ought to be, are simply contemptible. The beggar 
receives “a beggar’s portion.” 


14 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


Such, sir, are a few of the defects and mischiefs of 
this philanthropic-club-theory of Christian missionary 
work. It ignores the institution which Christ found- 
ed for the conquest of the world, and founds a new 
one to do the same work. It usurps in behalf of its 
irresponsible juntos a work not its own, an authority 
not its own, a support not its own. It causes the 
mass of Christ’s ministers to limit their divine call and 
commission to the already Christianized world, and 
the mass of Christ’s people to turn their lawful trib- 
ute into a pitiful almsgiving. 

But let me not be unjust. I remember the histori- 
cal necessity and service of these extraneous and 
unecclesiastical institutions in uprousing and educat- 
ing the Churches to a realization of their duty. I do 
not know that at the time of the founding of the 
earlier of them the friends of missionary labor could 
have done better than they did. God has certainly 
blessed them, both in the work of evangelization, and 
especially in their reflex action upon the Churches at 
home. I speak so emphatically of their defects, only 
because my theme requires me to review their theory 
in the light of Scripture and experience. So doing, 
I am compelled to pronounce them theoretically 
wrong, and at present practically mischievous. 

I find, Mr. Chairman, that I have spent so much of 
my time in disposing of false theories and methods 
that I can say but little of the true. I can only na- 
kedly state the leading principles included in the true 
theory, without one word of explanation or defense. 
As such principles I would name the following : 

I. The duty of evangelizing the world is the duty 
not of peculiarly called and providentially indicated 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 15 


individuals, not of Christian States, not of the total 
Christian stock, not of associated Christian philan- 
thropists, but of the Christian Church as such. 

II. The agents preeminently called to perform the 
work are the ministers of Christ, who, so far as their 
commission is concerned, are just as truly called to 
preach to the heathen nations as to Christian ones. 
“All nations” is Christ’s word. 

III. The appointment of Christian ministers to 
foreign fields, and their government while there, are 
as necessarily ecclesiastical acts as the appointment 
and government of home ones, and should be per- 
formed by the same ecclesiastical authorities. 

IV. The support of the foreign ministers should 
be provided for in the same way as that of the home 
ministers—not by funded endowments, not by the 
trembling hand of dying testators, not by charitable 
associations, not by sanctified rafflings and holy “grab 
bags,” not by any system or form of Christian beg- 
gary, but by the local churches acting in their Church 
capacity. 

V. Converts in foreign fields should be admitted to 
all privileges and duties of Church membership on 
precisely the same conditions as home converts, and 
such foreign members should from the beginning be 
regarded and treated by the Church, not as orphans, 
or bastards, or foundlings, but as children beloved, an 
integral and most interesting portion of the one indi- 
visible family. 

Such I understand to be the leading principles of 
that theory of Christian missions which regards the 
work as an essential and organic function of the 
Church as such, Every part of it naturally grows out 


16 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


of the Scripture conception of the Church and of its 
work. It exactly corresponds to apostolic practice. 
It assigns the work to the same hands to which Christ 
assigned it. It secures right agents, right methods, 
and right results. It does not necessarily do away 
with missionary societies, but it transforms them from 
irresponsible, outside associations into convenient or- 
gans of Church adiministration. 

Now, then, with this outline of the true theory of 
missionary work clearly before our minds, I desire to 
raise the question, To what extent does the actual 
missionary policy of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
correspond with the theory? Let us take up the five 
leading principles one by one, and inquire how far we 
are acting in accordance with each. Let none timidly 
deprecate such an investigation. Ifour policy is right 
it will do us good to know it. If it is wrong, the 
sooner they discover the fact the better. 

First, then, Task, Does the actual missionary policy 
of our Church proceed upon the principle that the 
duty of evangelizing the world is the duty of the 
Chureh, rather than that of individuals, societies, 
states, ete.? 

I answer unhesitatingly that it does. Not a few 
of our members, and perhaps some preachers in 
different parts of the country, still cherish the anti- 
quated notion that the evangelization of the world is a 
kind of gratuitous charity, the proper work of associated 
Christian philanthropists; but the present authorized 
missionary policy of the Church certainly rebukes so 
false a conception. It was not always so, but at 
present in our denomination all mission work is Church 
work. The law of the Church guards its interests at 





True Theory of Missionary Work. 17 


every point. By the law of the Church it has a place 
in the business of every administrative organ of the 
Church, from the Quarterly to the Quadrennial Con- 
ference. Every Church officer, from the Sunday 
school superintendent to the bishop, is officially and 
by the law of the Church linked to its support. In 
no other branch of the Christian Church has this fun- 
damental principle of the Scripture theory of missions 
found so complete an incorporation into the very law 
and usage of the body. 

Second, Does our actual missionary policy proceed 
upon the principle that the agents preeminently called 
to missionary labor are the ministers of Christ ? 

Again I answer, It does. Once we tried the ex- 
periment of sending out a colony of laymen with 
a company of missionaries to the west coast of 
America, just as our Wesleyan brethren did to the 
west coast of Africa, but in both cases there was no 
disposition to repeat the operation. Christian coloni- 
zation is one thing, Christian mission work quite 
another. Teachers of both sexes may be indispen- 
sable helpers in a Christian mission, but the great work 
of converting and saving the world must be chiefly 
wrought by Christian ministers, preaching the word 
and feeding the resultant flocks. This grand principle 
seems to be fully acknowledged and acted upon in the 
missionary operations of our Church. 

Third, As to the appointment and government of 
missionaries, our actual policy substantially conforms 
to the principle demanded by the true theory. From 
the beginning all appointments have been made by 
the proper appointing authorities, the bishops. Tor 
a time the government of missionaries was involved 


18 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


in some confusion, but by the action of our last Gen- 
eral Conference the position, character, and just rights 
of the Mission Conferences have been authoritatively 
and correctly settled. By that action the principle 
has been indorsed that in our Church, as it respects 
appointinent, privilege, and responsibility, the home 
and foreign ministers stand upon a common level. 
It only remains to apply the same principle more 
thoroughly than it yet has been to those missions 
where Conferences have not yet been organized. 

Fourth, Does our authorized missionary policy de- 
volve the support of missionaries upon the local 
churches as such ¢ - 

Originally it did not. Originally the support of 
our missionaries devolved exclusively upon the Mis- 
sionary Society as a benevolent association. If I am 
not misinformed, it was just a quarter of a century 
from the time of the founding of the Socicty before 
the General Conference even authorized _ annual 
church collections to be taken in aid of the Society. 
Since 1852, however, we find in our Discipline a little 
statement which strikes the keynote of a new dispen- 
sation. It reads thus: ‘The support of missions is 
committed to the churches, congregations, and socie- 
ties as such.”” No more pregnant sentence was ever 
put into that wonderful little book. It signalized, in- 
tentionally or unintentionally, a radical revolution in 
the entire theory and policy of missionary support in 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. It took that charge 
out of the hands of the Missionary Society, to place it, 
where it belongs, in the hands of the local churches. 
Theoretically, then, and by the law of the Church, we 
are right. 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 19 


But while we are thus theoretically right, are we so 
practically? Have we, as a Church, fully adjusted 
our working plans to the principle we have adopted ? 

For one, I fear we have not. And if I might be 
allowed to proffer a suggestion in this presence and 
upon this point, it would be that we more thoroughly 
apply and practically carry out the great principle 
which for seventeen years has stood at the head of 
our disciplinary plan for the support of missions. Do 
you ask, How? As a general answer I would say, 
Go up here to St. Paul’s Church and say to it, “ As 
many missionaries’ salaries as you will become respon- 
sible for, so many ministers shall be appointed as your 
missionaries. Their names shall stand alongside your 
pastor’s in the Conference and General Minutes. 
They shall be placed.in correspondence with you. You 
shall lave letters from them to read in your missionary 
concerts of prayer. You shall be entitled to write to 
them as your missionaries, and to rejoice in their 
success as your success.” Go to Washington Square 
and to Bedford Street and say the same thing ; go to 
every church in the land and say, “ Raise such a sum 
this year and youshall have a missionary all your own 
—Brother Thoburn, it may be, or Brother Parker, or 
Brother Long, or Brother Maclay, whomever the 
bishop may assign you. He shall be your messenger 
to the heathen, your second preacher, yowr minister 
at large, your embassador for Christ to distant na- 
tions. If you cannot compass the full support of a 
missionary, give us such a sum and you shall have a 
native preacher or a domestic missionary appointed in 
the same way. If you are too poor to come up to 
this point, we will give you a Bible reader, colporteur, 


20 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


or teacher. We want you to have a direct and im- 
mediate agency in the conversion of this world to 
Christ.” : 

Why, sir, such a proposition, it seems to me, would 
recreate our embarrassed work ina twinkling. Pub- 
lish it to the churches to-morrow morning, and you 
would not have men enough on your list to supply 
the demand till night. Just look at it. We have 
but thirty native American missionaries in our entire 
foreign Work. Counting Germans, Danes, Swedes, 
Africans, everybody, we have but forty-two sent out 
from the United States. St. Paul’s Church could to- 
day assume the support of one seventh part of the 
whole company. She could do it without taxing her- 
self any more than in some of the missionary con- 
tributions she has already made. , And, sir, she would 
give more than she ever yet has given. All our 
churches would. There is a mighty inspiration in 
this personal relation of a Christian flock to a Chiris- 
tian missionary, an inspiration of which we, in com- 
mon with other Churches, have failed to avail our- 
selves. Once introduce the plan, and no local church 
will feel that it has attained its majority and is en- 
titled to take rank in the sisterhood of normal, self- 
supporting churches, until it has its Two ministers, 
one to labor for itself at home, and one to care for its 
heathen wards. Once successfully inaugurate it, and 
I should call it a very poor success if at the end of 
ten years our Church had not an army of a THOUSAND 
missionaries and helpers preaching Christ in foreign 
lands. JI am no visionary dreamer. I do not merely 
theorize. The thing has been tried. Our venerable 
Secretary can tell you of a single country parish in 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 21 


Germany, not a large one, and certainly far from 
wealthy, which thus supports more than a dozen mis- 
sionaries of its own. It has two missionary training 
schools of its own, and raises from forty to fifty 
thousand dollars annually for the support of its imis- 
sion work. That shows what a single parish in a tor- 
pid State Church can do. Cannot we do as well? Is 
it not worth trying? What say these laymen before 
me? I do not know you, but I do know the laymen 
of my own Conference, and I venture little in assur- 
ing you that if you will let us have them as our mis- 
sionaries, our local churches in Massachusetts will 
take care of every American missionary now employed 
by our Church. Come on, then, churches of the 
North, South, East, West, there are a thousand of 
you already able to support a missionary apiece. Say 
the word and we will move out and take the world. 

Our final question touches the relation of foreign 
converts to the Church. | What principle or theory 
has our Church pursued with respect to these? 

It must be confessed, I fear, that in the earlier his- 
tory of our missions we leaned too much, at times, to 
that frigid theory of ecclesiastical non-intervention 
adopted by the first great missionary societies of 
England and America. Our converts in foreign fields 
were too often regarded as germs of new indigenous 
churches in their respective lands, each local society 
independent of all the others, and free to adopt all, 
whenever they should become self-supporting, such 
form of ecclesiastical organization and discipline as 
they themselves might fancy. Such a view was far 
enough from Methodistic. It was simply applying 
the principles of English Independeney or American 


99 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


Congregationalism to the vital accretions of our 
Church. It was accepting the identical maxim 
adopted by the London Missionary Society in 1796 
and indorsed by the American Board in 1856. 

In the case of our European missions this step- 
motherly view and: treatment of our converts was 
carried further than anywhere else. It was carried to 
such a pitch that the Methodist societies gathered by 
our missionaries in Scandinavia, Germany, and Switzer- 
land were not counted as possessing the character of 
local churches. A man could join one of them, en- 
joy all its privileges, and fulfill all its requirements, 
and yet be all the time a regular member of the 
Lutheran Church, or of the Reformed Church, or of 
the United Evangelical Church, or any Protestant one 
to which he might chance to belong. Even as late 
as my own connection with our mission in Germany 
nine tenths of our entire membership were, by the 
theory of the mission, members in good and regular 
standing, not of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but 
of the Protestant State Churches of the country. Nor 
was this simple fact the worst of it. The practice of 
the mission was in utter and open conflict with its 
theory. While theoretically these Methodist societies, 
into which our converts were introduced, were nothing 
but free associations for mutual improvement inside 
the pale of the Established Churches, practically they 
were local Methodist Episcopal churches. Their 
members were admitted, preached to, furnished with 
pastoral oversight and with the sacrament of the 
Lord’s Supper, governed, tried, expelled according to 
all tlie provisions of the Discipline of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church! One hour the convert was 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 23 


solemnly received into full church membership ac- 
cording to the affecting form of our Liturgy, the next 
he was informed that membership in these Methodist 
societies was not incompatible with continued mem- 
bership in the State Church. At times there would 
be a tedious and protracted Church trial, carried 
through with all the disciplinary form and punctilio 
which Bishop Baker’s Handbook could suggest, and 
resulting apparently in the expulsion of a member 
from the Methodist Episcopal Church. Alas for their 
pains! by the theory of the offended Church the 
poor offender had never been a member! Weep not, 
however, too sorely for the victim. His bow is 
doubly stringed. Though as legally expelled from 
the Methodist Episcopal Church as tle prescribed 
disciplinary process can possibly do it, he is still in 
the bosom of a sister Church, as sound and acceptable 
a member as ever! He simply returns like a repent- 
ant bigamist to his first and legitimate love. 

This anomalous and wretched condition of things 
grew out of an attempt to reform and vitalize the ex- 
isting State Churches, instead of operating in our own 
proper Church capacity. That was the first mistake. 
The second mistake was, that having commenced in 
that way, we did not either consistently follow out 
the plan or else drop it altogether. But the farther 
we went the more difficult it became to do either the 
one thing or the other. To carry out the plan con- 
sistently it was plainly necessary for our missionaries 
either to join these different State Churches, or else 
to cease at once the exercise of every properly minis- 
terial function. To drop it altogether was to bring 
about a rupture with the State Churches and expose 


24 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


our membership to all the civil disabilities of dis- 
senters, in those States where dissenters were tolerated, 
and to utter abandoninent in all others. The dilemma 
was a hard one, and could never have arisen but for 
the reaction which took place after the Revolution of 
forty-eight, under whose law of universal religious 
liberty the mission had been commenced. Either horn 
demanding a substantial abandonment of the whole 
work, it is not surprising that our missionary author- 
ities hesitated, doubted, procrastinated, hoping and 
praying for a providential solution. 

At length the providential solution came, came as 
it so often has, in the upheavals of a civil war. The 
first report of Prussia’s needle guns was the signal of 
our deliverance. Thereconstruction of all North Ger- 
many under Prussian influence since the war, and the 
constant liberalization of the South German and Swiss 
and Scandinavian governments, have rendered the 
longer continuance of our former relations to the State 
Churches of those countries absolutely inexcusable. 
I would not arraign the motives or wisdom of any in 
suffering so embarrassing a relation to arise; on the 
contrary, I only wonder that with so unsettled and 
tentative a missionary policy as our Church originally 
had, more and worse embarrassments have not arisen. 
But while the evil originated without fault or dis- 
honesty, it cannot longer be willingly tolerated with- 
out both. The case is perfectly clear. If our converts 
in those countries are bona fide members of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church, our societies bona fide societies 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, then have we no 
business to operate as a mere voluntary association 
inside of the Established Churches. If, on the con- 





True Theory of Missionary Work. 25 


trary, our converts are not bona fide members, their 
societies not bona fide societies of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church, then have the ministers of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church no right to serve and govern 
themas such. Asa Church we must take one position 
or the other, and then act in conformity with it. Our 
uncertain and ambiguous policy in the past has done 
more to prejudice the Christian public of Europe 
against us than all that the countless slanderers of 
Methodism have done and said against us. Against 
its continuance, so far as it may still be in force, I 
must solemnly and emphatically protest. Even before 
the war, when on the ground, I protested, and was by 
no means alone.. And, sir, I want this protest to ring 
through and through the Church. I want it to reach 
and arrest the attention of these honored bishops. I 
want it to stir up these grave and reverend gentlemen 
of the Missionary Board and General Committee. I 
want it to tingle in the ears of these ex-members and 
members expectant of General Conference. I want 
the whole Methodist Episcopal Church to under- 
stand the real status of the larger part of our Euro- 
pean membership. The thing must not longer be 
winked at. 

During the month of May, last year, I had a little 
celebration, all my own. Excuse me, sir, it was not 
all my own; thousands, I dare say, united in it. The 
occasion was the action of our General Conference 
recognizing our Mission Conferences as integral and 
homogeneous portions of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Most saw in that action simply a settlement 
of the relation of our missionary ministers to the 
Church; to me it was the settlement, and the rzght 


« 


26 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


settlement, of the relation of our foreign converts and 
their societies to the Church. By that action our 
Church, before restricted to the limits of this republic, 
was rendered ecumenical, catholic, universal. Hence- 
forth the world is really “our parish.” The terms 
“home ” and “ foreign” have lost their old significance. 
Henceforth our mission converts will be no more 
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the 
saints, brethren beloved. No longer will their soci- 
eties be regarded as State-Church-A wakening-Com- 
mittees, or as confraternities of the order of St. Jolin 
of Epworth. No longer will they be counted by their 
Methodistic mother as infant congregational churches, 
burdened with the responsibility of settling the age- 
long controversies of Christendom respecting eccle- 
siastical order before they can organize as a part of the 
visible Church. O,no! Henceforth they are one 
with us in faith and holy fellowship. In General 
Conferences to come, brethren from the North and the 
South, the East and the West, brethren from Africa, 
Europe, India, China, will clasp hands in Christian | 
greeting, one not only in Christ, but also in the living 
unity of his Church. Thank God that at length even 
the last principle of the Scripture theory of mission- 
ary work has found acknowledgment among us! 

Mr. Chairman, we do well to spend the year in 
jubilee rejoicings. Fifty years ago, as a Church, we 
shared the then prevailing misconceptions of the mis- 
sionary work so completely, that in only one of the 
five principles did we coincide with what I have ven- 
tured to style the true and scriptural theory. Step by 
step through the long years we steadily approached 
the true conception, until a few months before the 


«é 


True Theory of Missionary Work. 27 


incoming of the jubilee year, the last General Confer- 
ence of the period consummated the happy revolu- 
tion by action which completed the transformation of 
our Missionary Society into a strictly administrative 
organ of the Church, and changed our Proselytes of 
the Gate into Proselytes of Righteousness. Hence- 
forth our theory is right in every point. The man to 
whom more than to any other this happy revolution 
is due, I need not name. Tis form is a familiar one 
in these anniversary gatherings. His voice has been 
heard in every portion of the Church. His whitening 
locks lack not the crown of honor. Never will 
American Methodism forget to venerate the name and 
life work of Joun Price Duxrsin. 

Nor let our rejoicings look backward only; the 
opening future demands them. The very first year 
of our new half century is signalized by an episcopal 
progress around the world. And, what is the more 
wonderful and significant, it is the first in the world’s 
whole history. Most singular of all, it is under the 
auspices of the youngest Episcopal Church in the 
world. Bishop Kingsley’s is the proudest ecclesiastical 
distinction of the century. If spared to complete his 
tour, his name will have historic conspicuity as the 
first of his office who ever inspected the Lord’s great 
flock the whole world round, History relates that 
when the first actual circumnavigator of the globe re- 
ported to his king, the king embraced him with delight, 
elevated him at once to noble rank, and granted him 
a coat of arms of fit devices in which a globe was 
bordered with the proud inscription, Primus me cir- 
cumdedisti. Such a reception, such distinctions await 
our toiling bishop at the hands of Jesus Christ. 


28 True Theory of Missionary Work. 


He is the first, but others will follow after. The 
road will soon be milestoned by the towers of Metho- 
dist sanctuaries. Conference shall be joined to Con- 
ference, until the hemispheres are netted. Already 
the circling sun shines ever upon Methodism. Yea, 
upon our American Episcopal Methodism. And 
by and by, when we and all the Churches of the 
world shall finally have learned Christ’s theory of 
missions—when every Church of Philippi shall support 
its traveling Paul—then shall the Gospel be preached 
no longer by scattered units, but by banded thou- 
sands; then shall nations be born in a day, then shall 
the grand eternal jubilee begin! 


4 


ete 
on § 
2 | 





BISHOP THOBURN'S BOOKS. 





Bishop Thoburn’s presence in the United States has given rise to inquiries 
concerning the several books written by him in recent years. The first on the 
list is 


MY MISSIONARY APPRENTICESHIP, 


which was published at the end of Bishop Thoburn’s twenty-fifth year of mis- 
sionary service. It contains the story of his conversion, Gali to preach, special 
call to foreign mission fleld, and the successive steps by which he learned how 
to do the work of a missionary in India. This book gives many accurate and 
striking inside views of missionary life, and abounds with personal incidents 
which make it peculiarly interesting. Five editions of this book have been sold. 


12mo. Cloth. $1.20. 


MISSIONARY ADDRESSES. 


A series of ten lectures on missionary topics, five of them having been de- 
livered before the students of Garrett Biblical Institute, and five before the 
students of the’ Boston Theological Seminary. Three editions have been sold, 
and a fourth is now in press. These addresses should be widely circulated, 
especially among our young people. 


12mo. Cloth. 60 cents. 


THE DEACONESS AND HER WORK. 


A series of addresses and sermons on leading phases of the deaconess 
movement. This movement is attracting increased attention among the 
churches, and Bishop Thoburn can speak with confidence on the subject, hay- 
ing been personally connected with it from the first. The addresses were de- 
livered at various places, East and West, and some of them have attracted 


wide attention. 
12mo. Cloth. 60 cents. 


INDIA AND MALAYSIA. 


This is the latest and largest of Bishop Thoburn’s books, and has attracted 
wide and favorable notice. It consists of a series of sketches of country, 
people, and states which make up the great Empire of India, and also treats 
very clearly of many of the most important phases of modern missionary work. 
The book maintains the interest of the reader from first to last. It is richly 
illustrated, and is published in a very attractive style. Several interesting 
chapters were written by Miss Isabella Thoburn, Bishop Thoburn’s sister, and 
this fact adds much to the value of the book, especially in the eyes of our ex- 
cellent sisters who are interested in Foreign Missions, The chapters which 
treat of Malaysia treat of a region which is new to most American readers, and 
are full of interest. 


8vo, Cloth, $23; Half Russia, $2.50; Full Russia, $3. 


